Good point on the layoffs. The slippery slope is being greased by the slime who have been elected to represent us all.

Everything the progressives do is to further the destruction of an empowered middle class in favor of a return to the fiefdoms of the Dark Ages, where lords rules and peasants slaved in their fields to support them. How does a peasant making more money accomplish this?

Because the law isn't trying to make peasants out of peasants, but out of small business owners. Minimum wage hikes drive small businesses out of business entirely, swelling the ranks of the peasant class. Hikes also enrage the peasants against the middle class - rather than the self-proclaimed lords - by blaming them for the lords' own rulings!

It's a sop by Democrats to their union allies, who have lost two states to right-to-work laws during Obama's reign.

Some of the laws -- Los Angeles', and I think Philadelphia's -- exempt union-represented employees from the higher pay requirement. Thus the unions gain members while making us all worse off.

I am preparing to lay off 50% of our minimum wage workforce and transfer the assembly work to china. I need to do it now in case they forbid laying off low wage employees and moving production out of the country. The alternative for us is to go out of business. Government here is really going to destroy what made this country a great place to live. It isnt any more. Trump is right about that, but I somehow doubt he is going to get elected, and even if he was its unlikely he could reverse the trend to socialism very much

I thought about where I might move to avoid the increasing government control. Everywhere in the USA, almost all serious medical care is controlled by the government. Food is controlled by the department of agriculture, transportation by the department of transportation, communication and the internet controlled by so many divisions of the government.

Employment is about to be controlled by them too. Set the minimum wage and you cut out the possibility of getting a job that you may NEED, but no one can pay you less than the federal minimum so the job doesnt exist at all.
That leaves welfare if your skills and opportunities arent worth $15. So it is slavery.
The next government control will be that its forbidden to lay anyone off (does that sound like 10-289?). This will be necessary, and quickly, to prevent mass layoffs due to the minimum wage hike.

Of course. More Democrats.

I was just thinking this morning about how bad the GOP has screwed up and blew it...

I will agree to disagree about the impact of mandated wage increases with you.
Re : ACA I agree "it's moving coins around stacking them in different piles" right it takes healthcare dollars from producers and gives those dollars to moocher looters to moochers

Any time random mandated numbers are forced on free markets someone gets hurt. This case as in most govt. programs the recipients of that pain are the one the plan is intended to help. More of the great society , it is like carpet bombing the poor.

"It will make the high unemployment rate for young inner city youth permanent."
I think it would affect rural young people more. I'm not sure what affect it would have on urban area, but gut feeling is less. I think in all areas it would increase under-the-table work.

"I wonder how the ten year experienced employee who received raises over the years reaching that level of pay will feel?"
I think they'd be less affected. They might benefit in some ways because the market will need people with higher productivity, which in some jobs comes with experience, who can justify the higher prices.

Thinking about the winners and losers of bad policy reminds me of how I think we approach healthcare. It's like we're moving coins around, stacking them in different piles, trying somehow to make them worth more than they are.

Yes it is slavery...teaching the masses that they will never get beyond a "starter" Job, so we'll make sure you can live on doing very little.

There is a lot of talk these days about how "We" are our brothers keeper...that is not true, however when government or anyone else for that matter, gives a handout instead of a hand up...you become their keepers.

Economically, we know how this goes; Wages go up without competence and increased productivity, prices go up; Now, wages must go up so that one can pay for the higher cost of products and services...then prices must go up again. Consider what once cost .05 cents now costs $5.00 and the product is the same now as it was then,

Thanks for your comments It will make the high unemployment rate for young inner city youth permanent.
I wonder how the ten year experienced employee who received raises over the years reaching that level of pay will feel?

My wet finger says the equilibrium price is close to that in large urban areas, and everywhere else it's lower, so the $15 wage floor would cause a significant increase in unemployment. I think it would also slightly hasten the adoption of automation.

It's a way to feel like we're doing something about poverty while actually making things slightly worse.

The push is for $15 per hour for minimum wage.
Moveon.org Is petitioning for that increase. Sanders is , DC raised it to that. LA city as well. Raising LA employment payroll expense $7.5 billion. This is another attack on small businesses the true life blood of job creation.

I think it's more important as a political symbol. It's not indexed to inflation so it gives something for politicians to be demagogues about every time they increase it to keep its real value the same.

If min wage were higher than the equilibrium price for unskilled worked, it would create unemployment; just as any price floor creates surplus supply. I don't think that's happening now, so it's primarily a thing to get people fired up about. Raising it won't improve the life of the poor or bring about slavery. They could abolish it altogether tomorrow or raise it 20% without it really affecting things much.

Federal govt.s desire to have control over everything at the end of a barrel .
Did I leave anything out.